PS3 unlikely to have two versions

3 September 2005

In the Q&A session held at the GDC Europe event. SCEE Vice President, Phil Harrison stated that it is highly unlikely for Sony to cause confusion among its customers by creating multiple SKU's, a la Microsoft.

Just last month, the giant corporation revealed the official price structure for Xbox360's two separate SKU's. The 'Core System' without the Hard disk for $299 and a Premium version with all the goodies intact for $399.

Phil Harrison, in his personal view, criticized Microsoft's decision to market multiple choices of one console. When he was asked whether Sony might try a similar route as that of Microsoft. His reply, "Unlikely", sounding quite affirmative about it.This is how he explained his company's approach compared to Microsoft's, "Are there two versions of the Xbox 360 that people want to buy, is my question," he continued. "I don't know."

"This is my personal view, not my corporate view, but when I look at those formats, I think it just confuses the audience. They don't know which one to buy, developers don't know which one to create for, and retailers don't know which one to stock. So I think we wouldn't take that strategy. We wouldn't create confusion."

Although Harrison didn't support the idea of creating multiple versions of a single console. He did suggest that in the future, Sony's approach with the PS3 might as well include interesting options for its customers.

"There have been various versions and variants of PlayStations in the past - some run through the hardware and some through the software, and that's worked pretty well for us, offering different value propositions to the consumer. Exactly what we do with the launch? Too early to tell."

When asked if he'd like to share any thoughts regarding the price of the upcoming console. He said it would not be a very wise move on his part as it is still too early with respect to the suggested launch of PS3 in Spring 2006.